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News & Stories

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) frequently publishes updates, press releases, and other forms of communication about its work in more than 60 countries around the world. See the list below for the most recent updates or search by location, topic, or year.

Year

In October, a cholera epidemic took on overwhelming proportions. In less than three months, MSF treated more than 91,000 patients for the disease, around 60 per cent of all registered cases (see pages 84 – 85). The operating budget for MSF in Haiti in 2010 came to almost 106.1 million euros. One year after the earthquake, however, significant needs were still not being met.

Today, the southern region of Sudan is confronted by constant emergencies: malnutrition is chronic, violence continues to destroy lives and displace the population, and preventable diseases are relentless killers. More than 75 percent of the population has still no access to any form of basic healthcare. In addition to providing a range of medical services in 13 states of Sudan, at this moment MSF is battling to contain the biggest kala azar outbreak in eight years. And, as Sudan is heading towards a referendum on January 9th, MSF teams are preparing for any needs that might arise in addition to the ongoing medical challenges. If emergency needs soar, whether through violence, displacement or outbreak of diseases, MSF needs to be ready.

XDR-TB stands for extensive drug resistant tuberculosis. Drugs for TB have not been improved in four decades; they cause terrible side effects and require the patient to take numerous pills every day for between six months and three years. While one in five patients under treatment for moderately resistant strains of the disease do not survive, patients with extensively resistant cases, if they can get treatment at all, usually must rely on less effective and more toxic medicines, with lower success rates. For these reasons and others, Xoliswa Armans is a remarkable patient.

From January 12 to October 31, MSF treated more than 358,000 people, performed more than 16,570 surgeries, and delivered more than 15,100 babies. By December 12, MSF had treated 62,000 cholera cases in 47 treatment centers around the country.

MSF's project pilot involved a range of activities that included improving infrastructure in five regional health facilities, providing a back-up supply of essential drugs and supplies, distributing basic first aid kits, and more.